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Farming Today: Spring calving, badger cull, animal pain relief, pulse fishing

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12/03/2018

Spring calving, badger cull, animal pain relief, pulse fishing

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, Spring calving, badger cull, animal pain relief, pulse fishing

A fresh approach to livestock pain relief - and the debate over fishing with electricity.

British fishermen claim electric fishing or 'pulse fishing' by Dutch trawlers, 12 miles off the East Anglian coast, is devastating fishing grounds.

British fishermen claim electric fishing by Dutch trawlers twelve miles off the East Anglian coast is devastating fishing grounds. As we've reported before on Farming Today, 'pulse fishing' is technically banned under EU law. It's highly controversial and is opposed by environmentalists. But the Dutch fishing industry has been permitted to trial the practice as a research project, amid claims it's a less damaging system. BBC East's environment reporter Richard Daniel reports.

What's the best way to treat pain in animals?
An Australian paediatrician has been looking for a more efficient way of delivering pain-relief to livestock. Dr Meredith Sheil is also a sheep farmer, with a 2,000-strong flock a few hours from Sydney. 
She tells Mark Smalley what inspired the project.

Applications have opened for next year's badger cull, with interest from eight new counties - Avon, Berkshire, Derbyshire, Hampshire, Oxfordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire and Warwickshire.
The controversial shooting of badgers started in 2013, as part of the government's 25-year strategy to eradicate bovine TB, which some believe is transferred from badgers to cows.
Last year, 21 licenses were granted for culling in parts of Devon, Cornwall, Wiltshire, Somerset, Cheshire, Dorset, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire.

It's a slow start, but spring's just about on the way! The daffodils are popping up, lambing is underway and it's a busy time for Britain's dairy farmers. 
To produce milk, dairy cows have to calves. Some are born all year round while other farmers choose block-calving, when all the new stock are born within a few weeks, in spring or autumn. To begin our week-long celebration of spring, Lucy Taylor has been to see the calving in action at Rob Harrison's dairy farm in Gloucestershire.

Presented by Sybil Ruscoe; Produced by Lucy Taylor.

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